The lever or the securing lever is generally a locking lever, a double lock lever, a child-safety lever or similar. Such levers are in fact in most cases characterized by taking up (having to take up) at least two (stable) end positions or generally at least two reproducible positions. In case of a locking lever, these are the “unlocked” and “locked” positions. A double lock lever must feature the positions “double lock on” and “double lock off”. The child-safety lever finally corresponds to the positions “child-safety on” and “child-safety off”.
The type-defining prior art according to DE 32 20 705 C2 contains an intermediate lever assigned to a release lever for a locking mechanism with the release lever being continuously acted upon by the resetting force of a spring.
In DE 40 42 678 C1 a memory lever is assigned to the release lever, with a spring pushing said memory lever against the release lever when the vehicle door is closed. The spring is a leg spring.
The prior art is not convincing in all aspects. The known leg springs, for instance, ensure that the associated lever is acted upon but cannot prevent that also an unwanted axial force is introduced and/or the moments can only be inadequately adjusted in the end positions, making these solutions susceptible to tolerances. The invention aims to remedy this.